Dark Invasion: 1915: Germany's Secret War and the Hunt for the First Terrorist Cell in America Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B00HDPCQS4 | Format: PDF
Dark Invasion: 1915: Germany's Secret War and the Hunt for the First Terrorist Cell in America Description
Combining the pulsating drive of Showtime's Homeland with the fascinating historical detail of such of narrative nonfiction bestsellers as Double Cross and In the Garden of Beasts, Dark Invasion is Howard Blum's gritty, high-energy true-life tale of German espionage and terror on American soil during World War I, and the NYPD Inspector who helped uncover the plot - the basis for the film to be produced by and starring Bradley Cooper.
When a "neutral" United States becomes a trading partner for the Allies early in World War I, the Germans implement a secret plan to strike back. A team of saboteurs - including an expert on germ warfare, a Harvard professor, and a brilliant, debonair spymaster - devise a series of "mysterious accidents" using explosives and biological weapons, to bring down vital targets such as ships, factories, livestock, and even captains of industry like J. P. Morgan.
New York Police Inspector Tom Tunney, head of the department's Bomb Squad, is assigned the difficult mission of stopping them. Assembling a team of loyal operatives, the cunning Irish cop hunts for the conspirators among a population of more than eight million Germans. But the deeper he finds himself in this labyrinth of deception, the more Tunney realizes that the enemy's plan is far more complex and more dangerous than he suspected.Full of drama and intensity, Dark Invasion is riveting war thriller that chillingly echoes our own time.
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 10 hours and 36 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Harper Audio
- Audible.com Release Date: February 11, 2014
- Whispersync for Voice: Ready
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00HDPCQS4
Howard Blum's "Dark Invasion" brings to light a long lost series of attacks by Imperial Germany on the US during World War I, most notably a series of bombings and an anthrax poisoning. A half star off for slightly breezy writing and another half star off for skipping a proper conclusion leaves this at 4 stars.
While there's a plethora of books coming out to mark the 100th anniversary of World War I, "Dark Invasion" covers a niche that has largely been lost to history's dustbin: the covert operations of Germany against the United States prior to 1917. Remarkably, despite having the largest spy network in the world, in 1914 Germany had all of one agent in the United States. Through a crash course of recruiting, Germany's patched-together network proved remarkably able to create havoc well beyond their weight over the next two years.
Blum's focus is on the men who conducted these operations along with Tom Tunney, the head of the NYPD bomb squad, whose agency was responsible for the vast majority of captures. Of note are a Harvard professor who murdered his wife, escaped to find a new identity, and then bombed the US Capitol and nearly killed JP Morgan (whose financiering saved the Allies), a devilishly clever chemical cigar fire bomb that, thanks to non German allies, sunk innumerable transport ships, and a largely unknown anthrax attack designed to kill horses that appears to have killed quite a few people. Tunney's work is remarkable, especially given the jurisdictional limitations that faced him through working for the NYPD versus the federal government; an interesting point is that Wilson was made well aware of the intelligence on the German spy network but that it did not appear to factor into his decisions.
Three quibbles.
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